@PGMatt:
I don’t think Zhukov’s original question has been answered, that is, because of board and positional air strength are mech inf too strong and favor the Axis power’s too much?
The arguments I have read here are all about the nuts and bolts of the pieces and costs within a bubble.
If I am reading the original question/post correctly, the answer would be more like: When operating in Russia (Nov/Bel/Bry/Ros/Cauc) and East, as well as Sub-Sahara Africa only mechanized inf belonging to the original territory owner may use it’s extra movement point except as part of a paired blitz movement.
This would allow Germany to rebuild it’s front lines up to Ukraine and Poland with fair speed but bog down closer to Moscow and south into the middle east, while Japan would have a 1 hex per move slog across China or Siberia
I kind of dislike conditional rules. Maybe just add more. Chinese and Russian units?
Honestly Charles, I’m not a good enough player to exploit the issues that Zhukov is raising, I was just trying to address the question rather than “are mech inf. too strong/good/value for IPC” I dont think my proposal is one I would actually want to play with, it’s too complicated for this style of war game.
Its not that its overpowered, its not realistic and it goes against the separation of jobs–transports transport and the rest of the units fight.
It also affects the different nations differently; some use warships and some don’t. If a change doesn’t address a problem, it causes new ones.
If we did allow the warships to carry 1 infantry, I don’t see it as particularly useful even if we assumed that it did address some problem. If you forward stage the units, that’s ok for defense but as you said, they can’t land during combat. In that case, the infantry would still need a transport to arrive at some future point in order to project power.
The Allied problem in Europe is not so much successfully landing on Normandy, but holding it.
Enabling the Allies to move additional units as reinforcements via NCM does not change the expense of projecting force for an amphibious landing, but it does enable them to secure a territory and develop momentum for the next move.
I wouldn’t get entirely caught up in this - no rules will be changing anytime soon.
As for Mechs being too strong - the strength of the Axis is in mobility and concentrating its power.
Mechs are an enabler in this concept and probably should be struck from Japan’s ability to purchase at all. That could help slow down Japan immensely on the mainland.
As for the Germans, they wouldn’t abuse Mechs so much and exploit their strength if they were forced to face a two front war sooner. The entire game is premised on how fast the Allies can force the Germans to make defensive investments.
From my understanding, the earliest this can even happen is around US4-US5 and that is with a 100% Europe investment that will land 10 units per round in Europe going forward. Unfortunately, the Russians have gone into full retreat by this point in the game and the Germans can “afford” to redirect income back to Europe to repel the early landings.
And…. we haven’t even talked about the Italians running interference on those landings yet.
JMDTE
“Japanese Mech Drive to Everywhere!” Hehe
I don’t mind Mech so much the way they play out with Germany on the Eastern Front. Sure the rush defense is a bit overpowered, and their attack potential can be pretty potent when combined with artillery and all the Axis airpower in Europe, but its more the way they are used in Asia by Japan (and to a lesser extent by the UK in South Asia) that seems a bit silly. The way those Nations can spam mech out of minor factories and then trounce around all over the place with the Airblitz on attack or the Airwall on defense. Even a couple mech rushing to the front at lightning speed can be maddening, when the other guy has got a dozen fighters to back them up. Their movement advantage kind of defeats the purpose of having so many extra spaces added in to those regions of the gameboard. 1 extra ipc is relatively cheap for Japan, if it lets you launch a critical attack establish a strong defense a full round earlier (sometimes 2 rounds earlier) than infantry would allow.
I’m not sure what the ideal solution would be. I kind of agree with what some others have said, if we bump their cost to 5, the unit would be a lot less attractive as a purchase option, but I could see it going from one extreme to the other, from mass mech to no mech. It’s kind of a bind
How about if you buy one mechanized infantry it costs 5 IPC, if you buy two it costs 9 IPC, three costs 14 IPC, four costs 18 IPC… So in other words it averages at 4.5 IPC.
I buy lots and lots of mechs at 4 IPC.
At 5 IPC I would probably buy zero, and pick up tanks instead. At those prices, for every 30 IPC spent, you’d get one more hit if you chose mechs, or +9 attack +3 defense if you chose tanks. The situations in which mechs would be a better buy would be few and far between - so rare, that if the unit were removed entirely it would not be missed.
Mechs are fodder units. Fodder units need to be as cheap as possible since you buy them in bulk and their only purpose for existence is to soak up hits that would otherwise be allocated towards more expensive units. Increasing the price of fodder undermines the very reason it is in the game in the first place.
There might be a better balance of unit costs to be found, but it won’t be found in adjusting mech prices only, all prices across the board would have to be realigned as well as the amount of income on the board.
Mechs are balanced by their awful attack value and lack of unsupported blitz capability. If their mobility is giving you fits, use pickets.
I agree that mechs are OP. I am one of those that doesn’t really see the need to make a costly assault on moscow. My entire strategy id completely dependent on mechs and very difficult to deal with.
What I basically do is; I have italy take rumania and buy about 20 mechs on G2 and 10 mechs on G3 (I usually save the money on G1). Then I make my stack. Because italy has taken Bulgaria, they have some infs, some tanks and a few planes. Enough to be able to kill a stack of about 10 russians. Then I move the entire force to rostov as soon as possible. When I am in rostov, I will have more than 40 mobile units + whatever infs, arts and planes. I stack it enough so that the russians cannot strafe or attack my stack without horrific losses. Since the russian cannot attack, he has to defend. Since there is two paths to moscow from rostov, he either has to stack one of the paths and put enough units on the other path to stop my italians from killing it. If my italians kill the blockerstack, all of my mechs can “blitz” to moscow since they are moving through friendly terr. So the russian have to put at least 10 units in his blockerstack. If he does, I can send in 4-5 infs and luftwaffe and get a great scirmish kill. Most russians will not allow me to kill 30-40 ipc cheaply every round and will therefore retreat.
This means that because of mechs, I can force the russian to bottle up in moscow by standing in rostov. This means that I can take cauc, stalingrad and on G6 and take persia and iraq very soon after. After this, germany will have more than 100 ipc in production.
Another great way of using mechs for germany is defencivly. I always build my W-germany Defence by only using mechs, and no infs. This is because all of those mechs, + 3 arts in paris + all of my planes can then kill any allied landing in france. This is by far the cheapest way of covering all of france with possible counterattacks.
So, all in all, the mechs are pretty damn powerfull when combined with italian canopening.
How about this for a small downgrade for mechs. When attacking you need two artillery to up the attack of on mech. exception: if you areattacking with an odd number of artillery, you may promote a mech with only one last artillery. In simpler terms 4 artillery promote 2 mechs. 5 artillery promote 3 mechs. 6 artillery promote 3 mechs.
I might rater make mechs into 1/1/2 with a cost of 3 IPC per unit
I might rater make mechs into 1/1/2 with a cost of 3 IPC per unit
Alone MEC should be 1/1/2
Paired with ART they are 2/1/2
Paired with ARM they are 1/2/2
This makes them valuable as a fast unit to the front lines so you’re paying 4 IPC for the versatility of the unit in speed and pairing options. However, their base numbers alone cannot easily overwhelm your enemy with them unless you support them.
Probably in the minority, but I’ve no problems with the cost or capability of mechanized infantry.
As many people have heard, The best defence is a good offence. This is probably true. the best way of stopping your enemy from hurting you is to destory his ability to hurt you. In war this would mean sending your army accross the border to burn some cities and destory some armies. However, the ability to destory the enemy in the field and take his cities is not what is most important when you want to conquer the terretory.
However, one thought I have had recently is this: The best offence is a good defence. To conquer terretory is all about going in, taking the area and then holding it. Very few armies in history have been able to prevent an enemy army from moving into some of its own terretory. In general, the aggressor army would move in, try to take some things of importance for the invaded and then holding it against all possible counterattacks. You cannot prevent counterattacks from happening, all you can do is to try to defeat them when they do.
This all makes perfect sence. If the best defence is a good offence, then the best offence has a good defence. You basically need to defeat your enemys plan.
With this backround, the mechs is an extremly good unit. keeping it in w germany give you great ability to counterattack in france, while its speed gives you the fodder for the eastern front to hold the key russian terretories with it. The key teretory IMO is rostov. When you hold rostov and have an italian canoperner, you force the russian back to moscow and make sure the russian has very bad production.
I might rater make mechs into 1/1/2 with a cost of 3 IPC per unit
Alone MEC should be 1/1/2
Paired with ART they are 2/1/2
Paired with ARM they are 1/2/2This makes them valuable as a fast unit to the front lines so you’re paying 4 IPC for the versatility of the unit in speed and pairing options. However, their base numbers alone cannot easily overwhelm your enemy with them unless you support them.
I really like this idea. It would solve alot of the problems with the eastern front. My stack of 40 mechs and 10 tanks (and lots of inf, arts and planes) just lost 5 hits/turn, which makes it much less effective at holding terretory.
There is no problem with the Mech Inf., neither with the abillity of it nor the cost.
The mech unit is good as it is.
Global 40 players are facing the problem of strong purchases of a single unit type (Mech. Inf. or Bmbrs).
There is no strategy behind, it is simply following Guderians Plan of:
" Nicht kleckern sondern klotzen" , wich is the english term of MASSPRODUCTION!
Why is the cost value of a Mech. Inf. not the problem?
Because if you change it, you also change the dynamic of this game for all nations present.
I find the new BM version as a good solution, but also have to try out the BM (balanced mod. Version) my self.
My Understanding of it is, that it exactly focuses on the right issue.
That is:
Allies income.
BM allows you to get more income through the new adressed NO’s.
My two cents.
That what my intuitive thinking concluded before reading you.
The MI issue was simply a matter of too low income for the Allies.
Axis must move fast during R1 to R7, after Allies should get the upper hand.
From a realistic POV, JTDto any where in Asia is incorrect.
The thing to keep in mind re this topic is mechs are relatively new to A&A as a game. As of yet, they haven’t been integrated into the standard 1942 game. The question is “do mechs work as a unit in A&A?”. And I’m not convinced that they do. I think if mechs were introduced into the current standard 42 game it would likely unbalance it in favor of Axis and lead to escalating bids for Allies. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But it can be a bad thing if the inclusion of mech (or alternatively, overly cheap bombers) leads to an optimized strategy that towers over other kinds of strategies. Strategic diversity is part of the delicate question of “balance”.
Make no mistake–I love Global and consider Global the best A&A game bar none, and mechs have been an integral part of Global. However, perhaps there is a case to be made that mechs don’t work for A&A and even Global would be a better game w/o them.
Edit: Realistically, increasing the price of mechs to 5 would probably solve any balance issues related to them. But as others have noted, at that price they probably wouldn’t be purchased very often.
You did get me thinking about the other new unit in Global, the naval/air base. Both bases and mechs were made to help navigate the larger board, and I wonder if cutting the price of these facilities would give some relief to the Allies, who are more reliant on them because the US (and UK to a degree) needs to ferry units across the ocean. The US and UK could be more inclined to throw some around, especially in the Mediterranean to protect fleets and facilitate supply lines. Of course the Axis could buy them too, but Japan is probably too busy buying mechs to rage across Asia.
Cheaper airbases and harbors would definitely make them more useful, not only for allies but for Japan also, which has reason to put them in at least a couple of places.
There’s a good argument for rebalancing the cost of units across the board, but of course it would have to be playtested extensively to make sure it was playable and enjoyable.
Veritas, how about a Balance Mod game? you up for it? :)
Personally, I think that mechs ruin the slow marches through the winter to Moscow that the addition of the extra Russian front territories were meant to create.
Going back to the allies weak landings, I think that the inclusion of the marines infantry units would make a good historical and strategy effect on the game. By giving marines the ability to attack @ 2 during amphibious assaults and either letting them take the infantry spot on transports or boosting the attack of inf to 2, both the US and Japan won’t have to carry around illogical artillery and could give the US better opportunity in Europe.
We could also change the Frech liberation to coastal territories as well, maybe some bonus infantry upon landing or capturing.
Sorry if I got too off topic but I like talking about allied improvements that don’t deal with bids
Jerold, some of the concepts you mentioned are included in Balance Mod. Marines are included (they attack at 2 during amphib assault, and can load onto cruisers and battleships, in addition to transports). Also, to make landings in Western Europe more meaningful, USA gets +5 when Holland and Normandy are Allied controlled with at least 1 US land unit present. Details about the mod can be found here: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37341.0 Give er a try!
